RSCCD Board of Trustees Recognize Student Veterans

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The Rancho Santiago Community College Board of Trustees recently honored veteran students from Santa Ana College and Santiago Canyon College for their service.​

SAC student veteran, Jose Marin, pictured with Board of Trustee Zeke Hernandez, was recognized by the Board for his military service and hard work in the classroom. Marin, who is active an participant in the SAC’s Veteran Student Support Services program, is currently pursuing a degree in History. He plans to transfer to either UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Irvine, CSU Long Beach, CSU Fullerton, or CSU Los Angeles next fall.

Marin hopes to eventually earn a Ph.D. at UCLA, and was recently accepted into UCLA’s Community College to Ph.D. program, where he will conduct research on the military experiences of Hispanic veterans of the Vietnam War and the Global War on Terror. He is one of only 25 participants who were accepted from community colleges across Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, and is the only student veteran in his cohort.

Marin has 20 years of military service, and spent the first 12 years of his career with the United States Marine Corps as a fire support sergeant before transitioning to the United States Air Force as a surgical assistant. During his time in service, He received multiple awards, including: the Presidential Unit Citation, multiple Armed Forces Reserve medals, a Combat Action Ribbon, and the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal.

SCC student veteran, Matthew Jones, pictured with Board of Trustee Claudia Alvarez, was recognized by the Board for his military service and educational pursuits at SCC. Jones served honorably for three years in the U.S. Army as an Infantryman in the 82nd Airborne Division, including a deployment to Iraq in which he led a fire team on various operations in Baghdad.

Jones started his educational journey at SCC in Fall 2015. As of June 2018, he has earned three Associate degrees, include an Associate of Science for transfer degree with a major in Physics; an Associate of Science of Liberal Arts: Math & Sciences; and an Associate of Science for transfer in Mathematics. All were granted with Honors. He is currently finishing up one last course at SCC (Engineering Dynamics) and will be attending the Viterbi School of Engineering at USC studying Mechanical Engineering in the 2019 spring semester.